SAN FRANCISCO — Golden Gate Bridge drivers will pay another $1 to cross the span beginning April 7 after the span's board approved a toll hike Friday morning on a 15-2 vote.

In approving the toll hike, several board members went on record saying the district needs to look at ways to use toll money to help fund a suicide barrier on the span. Board member and Marin Supervisor Judy Arnold suggested that along with approving the toll hike the board should approve a statement of support for the barrier.

"I wanted it stated that this board has the highest priority in getting this suicide net done, and if that means using tolls, we will look at that," she said.

While Arnold eventually withdrew her amendment to appease those who said the issues should be handled separately, other board members agreed the board should look at funding some of the $66 million project. Current board policy states toll money can't be used for the project. Earlier this week bridge officials said a funding plan for the barrier could be developed in the next couple of months. The project would take about two and a half years to build.

"I wanted to assure the public just how important this is to us," Arnold said.

With the toll increase package approved Friday, drivers then will see a 25 cent increase to the toll each year through 2018, bringing the FasTrak toll to $7 and the pay-by-plate toll to $8 by July of that year. About 85 percent of bridge users have Fastrak.

With all-electronic tolls now on the bridge — all toll takers were eliminated in March 2013 — the cost to cross can be raised by less than whole dollars if desired without fear of a traffic backup, because no change has to be made.

The toll increases will raise $138 million over the period. The district has a projected five-year, $142 million deficit, up from a $66 million deficit in 2012.

Personnel costs, the seismic retrofit of the span, a $75 million bill to help pay for the ongoing Doyle Drive upgrade, south tower painting and the partial loss of revenue from a downsized local bus contract with Marin County, have fueled the district's deficit, bridge officials said.

The district also maintains bus and ferry service. While transit eats up half of all toll revenues, officials say it takes 25 percent of traffic off of Highway 101 in Southern Marin during commute periods. The district also has cut its staff by about 25 percent in the last decade, officials said.

Those votes came despite a June 1988 vote in which Marin voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure asking their representatives on the bridge board to not approve toll increases until the board is an elected body.

Twenty-six years later the bridge board still is an appointed body — primarily by the boards of supervisors from Bay Area counties.

Marin officials have been told by legal counsel the Marin measure has no bearing, in part because the bridge district was created by the state.

Tolls were last raised by $1 in 2008. Fastrak users now pay $5 to cross the span, while pay-by-plate drivers pay $6. FasTrak users pay less because it is cheaper to process those transactions, officials said.